Brewers begin NL Central title defense with demolition of White Sox

Sal Frelick and Jake Bauers homered and hard-throwing Jacob Misiorowski shook off a leadoff home run to strike out 11 over five innings as the Milwaukee Brewers routed the visiting Chicago White Sox 14-2 on Thursday in the season opener for both teams.

Misiorowski (1-0), named to the All-Star team last season after just five major league starts, gave up a leadoff homer to Chase Meidroth, but allowed only a fourth-inning single over the rest of his 94-pitch outing, along with three walks.

Misiorowski's 11 strikeouts were an Opening Day franchise record, surpassing the previous mark of eight done three times, most recently by Freddy Peralta last season.

Aaron Ashby, Grant Anderson and DL Hall each followed with a scoreless inning. Munetaka Murakami, who played the previous eight seasons in his native Japan, had a solo homer in the ninth for the White Sox off Jake Woodford.

Frelick's two-run homer put the Brewers up 8-1 in the fifth. Bauers added a three-run shot in the seventh that made it 14-1. Milwaukee, bidding for its fourth consecutive NL Central title, pounded out 12 hits but also benefited from 10 walks.

William Contreras' bases-loaded double capped a four-run second-inning rally off starter Shane Smith (0-1), who struggled with command. Frelick walked with one out, David Hamilton reached on catcher's interference and Garrett Mitchell walked to load the bases. Joey Ortiz's bloop single to shallow right scored one run. Contreras' two-out double down the left-field line cleared the bases to make it 4-1.

The Brewers added two runs in the fourth. Hamilton beat out an infield single that caromed off the bag at second, advanced on a sacrifice bunt, stole third and came home on Ortiz's second RBI single. Christian Yelich added a two-out RBI single.

The Brewers added three runs in the sixth on an RBI single by Andrew Vaughn and a pair of bases-loaded walks.

Meidroth immediately put the White Sox in front in the first, sending a 99.5 mph fastball on a 3-2 count 417 feet to left center. Misiorowski bounced back to strike out the next three hitters.

Prior to the game, Brewers outfielder Jackson Chourio was placed on the 10-day injured list with a fractured left hand. He's expected to miss two to four weeks.

--Field Level Media